Another fine example of parents expecting others to do their work for them.

What a Twilight Zone story! I watched hours and hours of cartoons as a kid. Sure, I smoked (briefly, in college) but it was because the cool girls did, not because some cartoon cat did. I think Jane dropped an anvil on Ted's head on her way out the door...

Heck no, they shouldn't be "sanitized" (read - censored). Kids don't watch these cartoons anyway. Besides, have you tried to find a decent cartoon on a Saturday morning? But I digress. I must have watched hundreds of hours of cartoons, but I never tried to blow anyone up or jump off a cliff. Why? Because I knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Maybe parents should try teaching their kids this distinction instead of just complaining that their kids can't make it.

This is akin to the removal of a cigarette from the hand of Paul McCartney on some posters for The Beatles' Abbey Road album. What a travesty.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/arts/abbey-road.htm

In hindsight, it becomes apparent that what those cartoons could have used were more scenes of self-righteous a**h***s having acts of grotesque, gratuitous and excessive violence perpetrated upon them.

OMG, people are getting waaaayyy to sensitive! I watched these cartoons as a child and I don't smoke or drop anvils on people or do any if the other things that cartoon characters do. Get over yourselves PC people. Frankly I would like to think that people out there have some sort of common sense and not think "well Tom and Jerry do it, so it must be ok." Dumb***es.

Has anyone read "Thank You For Smoking?" The author makes reference to other campaigns where tv shows keep the "good guys" from smoking and keep the "bad guys" smoking. It doesn't discourage kids from smoking. Aren't parent's supposed to be the ones to talk to their kids about it? Why change a perfectly good cartoon?

Hmmm...reminds me of that one Looney Tune I saw where Porky the Pig dresses up in BLACKFACE and directs a minstrel orchestra.

This seems like a more serious issue to me than cigarettes do.

To censor cartoons is to "expunge" the grime from our collective past, to pretend that we are, and always were, wholesome and pure. I don't think that's good for anyone. Instead we ought to use the objectionable as a starting point for debate.

Sounds like the same parents who used Sunlight dishwashing liquid to make lemonaid. The environmentalists have forced laws down our throats that prohibit helping a fawn (that's a baby deer) if the mother is injured/killed because "nature must take it's course". Fine, lets apply that to people too. Eventually the roads will become much less crowded.

Have you seen some of the many overtly racist scenes from Looney Toons, etc, such as all the blackface parodies? I love the classic cartoons, but there's a lot in them that is pretty unacceptable nowdays. I actually think they should be cleaned up to current standards when they are played during kids programming, though not for the later "adultswims". Cigarettes may be borderline, but face it, people don't going around dropping pianos on each other, but they do smoke, lending acceptability that the outrageous violence doesn't have. Why reinforce smoking through cartoons if we don't have to?

I watch the old Tom and Jerry cartoons with my four-year-old son and I still laugh out loud. But the 1940s and 1950s episodes have already been changed: the voice of the African-American woman who owns Tom has been redubbed. It is still a black woman's voice just one that sounds better to modern ears.

Much like classics in racism like "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" and "Song of the South" are considered inappropriate for kids for their content and aren't shown, why not simply remove the offending toons from circulation? Why Bowdlerize?

This has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard-- a cartoon cat glamorizes smoking? Sheesh. Yeah, I remember watching T&J and hoping I could grow up to chase a cartoon mouse.
If Turner Broadcasting really has nothing more intelligent to offer than this, they're more desperate for publicity than I thought.

Is Tom and Jerry even on anymore? I know it's on Cartoon Network, but I haven't seen it on Saturday morning in a loooong time.
I too watched those cartoons growing up and I have NEVER smoked, or dropped a piano on my brother's head, because my parents told me it was bad. Not to mention the hospital bills would have been insane. ;+)

Honestly, with regards to the balckface cartoons, I didn't know it was anything bad until I was in college. And when I was a kid i didn't "assume" that African Americans acted that way because of blackface at all.

Which just goes to prove that we're moving more and more away from the "right to free speech", and closer to the "right not to be offended".

It seems a bit silly for Turner & Co. to worry about a cartoon cat smoking a cigarette, when there are plenty of shows and commercials on TV right now that I think more heavily influence children and teens and that have content I could do without from time to time. I think what I find most objectionable to the "censorship" of Tom and Jerry and other cartoons is that it symbolizes what seems to be happening more and more these days -- people seemed to have lost their tolerence for anything that doesn't fit neatly into their own personal philosophy. By the way, if someone knows what channel exists on cable where they still show Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s - 50s I'd like for someone to clue me in. They seem to have disappeared. Too many smoking barnyard animals doing the jitterbug, I guess.

Let's give our kids some credit. They (ok--most) know the difference between real and pretend. They know cartoons are pretend. If a child later choses to smoke, it won't be because of what they saw on a cartoon. It'll be because of what they see in the real world; i.e., other kids, role models, and PARENTS. Heck, I used to love it when Bugs would give Elmer a big kiss before getting away, but I'm not gay.

Let me get this straight...

A cartoon cat, (who just happens to be the worst mouser on the planet, may I add), lights up a cigarette while trying to look "cool" and impress a she-kitty, and this is supposed to cause an entire generation of Good Kids to suddenly go astray? And this snippet of entertainment nostalgia is responsible for sending the wrong health message to our impressionable youth, while cartoons like "Yu-Gi-Oh" and "Xiaolin Showdown" instruct our youngsters about peer interaction and social consciousness, "Ed, Edd and Eddy" and "Camp Lazlo" teach our children manners and morals, "SpongeBob" gives them a sense of work ethic, and "Jimmy Neturon" inspires them to scientific careers?

I have failed as a parent.

Please excuse me... I must go digitally alter the old family photos... Grandpa has a pack of Camels in his shirt pocket.

Idiots.

One viewer complained...?

Reminds me of the occasional campaign to have the cigarette removed from the bronze stature of Puccini in his home town.

I love animation...collect it semi-seriously. Remember it from infancy. Never smoked, still don't.

Fortunately, kids have sharper minds than censors.

Cigarettes, anvils, and electrical sockets are all fun and games. But the one where Tom scores some diesel and shares a needle with Jerry could probably use some touching up. I guess these parents don't know what kind of videogames their kids are playing.

It should be noted that a large majority of scenes involving a cartoon character smoking to look cool usually result in said character getting smashed with an anvil for the attempt. I wouldn't say that positively reinforces smoking for cartoon cats or kids. Baby, bathwater; forest, trees; etc.

Just another example of pandering to the lowest common denominator, or in a phrase the LCD can relate to....stupid. We could avoid all of this if we make "lack of common sense" a capital offense.

Gee, I grew up watching Tom & Jerry cartoons and watching people in my family smoke. Surprisingly, I've never smoked anything in my life. I don't feel that history (social and otherwise) should be rewritten. It was what it was--warts and all. People grow and mature and so do belief systems. What we really can work on is our present and our future.

Parents need to take responsibility for what their kids watch. If old cartoons are too violent for your kids - don't let them watch!

I really like that episode of Tom and Jerry, the mouse totally punks him while he's smoking, so wouldn't that be an anti-smoking message?

I really like that episode of Tom and Jerry, the mouse totally punks him while he's smoking, so wouldn't that be an anti-smoking message?

I really like that episode of Tom and Jerry, the mouse totally punks him while he's smoking, so wouldn't that be an anti-smoking message?

I learned how to approach women by looking at peppe le' pue.

While we're at it, can we please do the following?

1. Give Betty Boop some less revealing clothes.
2. The early Mickey Mouse needs a shirt.
3. Porky needs some pants.
4. Minnie Mouse's legs are too skinny, promoting that it's ok to be anorexic.
5. GI Joe promotes gun violence. Edit out the guns and replace with pillows.
6. Add more females to the Smurfs. The way it is now, it implies a male dominated society. Add a black, asian, and hispanic smurf too, just so the rainbow of Smurfs is covered.

The list goes on.

If people would actually parent instead of using the TV as a baby sitter, this wouldn't be an issue. My parents did control the only TV in the house when I was growing up. I'm much more concerned about the message children are receiving when they are bombarded with pharmaceutical commercial after pharmaceutical commercial in prime time with real people, not cartoon characters. Are we not setting the next generation up to either be hypocondriacs or junkies?

I've watched that cartoon with my young grandchildren and it was fun. They are highly unlikely to smoke, because none of the eight adults in their lives smoke and they frequently get anti-smoking warnings.

I wanted my grandchildren to see "Song of the South," but Disney, of course, refuses to release it, despite the fact that, to children, Uncle Remus is the truly sympathetic character that any kid would like to hang out with. I found out it was available in France, ordered a copy, had it converted to proper format, and let them watch it. They loved it. Take that, Disney!

I think the poll needs another option: Preserve as created AND provide a more child-friendly option.

My kids love Tom & Jerry videos, and as a parent I let them watch because they're much, much smarter and more clever than the animé and body-function jokes that try to pass as funny on Nickolodeon and Cartoon Network, et al.

That said, those old cartoons contain some offensive material. Beyond smoking, there are lots of "orphanages = bad kids" themes in both Tom & Jerry and Mickey Mouse cartoons that are horrible (when viewed today). As an adoptive parent, those depictions concerns me much more than smoking -- while it's easy to tell my kids not to smoke, it's harder to deal with orphans-as-funny-delinquents cartoons and how they impact my children's self-images.

But if you think I have the time to censor all possible TV shows, you're clearly not a parent. Sure I watch with my kids, but the media bears a responsbility to society.

If it's possible, and a responsible thing to do, why NOT create both options of these cartoons and let the public choose?

Puritan Americans can go to hell

On a more serious note, this is a very interesting comment:

"while it's easy to tell my kids not to smoke, it's harder to deal with orphans-as-funny-delinquents cartoons and how they impact my children's self-images."

Discrimination can affect any group we can possibly think of (see my previous comment for another example). I'm not a parent, but I think your child being exposed to such a thing could provide an opening to discuss just how pervasive discrimination can be and to foster empathy towards other groups that maybe suffer from it where you are living. In this way, the child's confusion and possibly pain at seeing his or her social "role" parodied or slandered might be turned into a positive lifelong lesson.

"But if you think I have the time to censor all possible TV shows, you're clearly not a parent. Sure I watch with my kids, but the media bears a responsbility to society."

In my opinion it is a bad idea to put responsibility in the hands of huge abstract entiies like "the media."

Do you remember around age 7 or 8 when you're mercilessly make fun of the kids in your class who didn't realize that Fonzie wasn't real? They'd be angry and saying that they'd get the Six Million Dollar Man to beat you up and you'd just laugh at them because you'd just seen Lee Majors on the Battle of the Network Stars? I'm not saying kids don't confuse reality and television, but you know what? Those that did, got their butts kicked on the playground for being fools.

I think we need to talk to the auto makers. Seems like every ad I see now days has somebody driving like a lunatic through the city streets. I really don't feel like raising my kids anymore so I need those ads removed from all Turner Broadcasts before my kids get any ideas.

These kids in America don't need to be smoking no weed and talking on their ipods they need to be fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 in Iran. USA USA

And next time, they'll follow Sarah Jessica Parker and ban the word 'fat'. What next? Complete news blackout, show only fairy tales and 'infomercials'?
Can't wait to see...

you mean there's not such a thing as "statutory stupidity?" dang. i was going to start making citizen's arrests.

Did anyone read the article? The complaints are from Britain and involve these scenes censored for British viewing. This has NOTHING to do with American culture and reflects European culture ONLY.

Cartoon characters are two-dimensional.

"Did anyone read the article? The complaints are from Britain and involve these scenes censored for British viewing. This has NOTHING to do with American culture and reflects European culture ONLY."

They are reacting to a British complaint, but Turner Broadcasting is a Time-Warner company that broadcasts worldwide. Explain to me how this doesn't have implications for America. Also, are you suggesting that Americans don't lodge these sorts of complaints on a regular basis?

My "American Puritans can go to hell" comment was meant to be entirely tongue-in-cheek.

Hmm....I think the teen choice awards is a worse influence than tom and jerry

This is a good example of parentalitis: a condition where the subject's world becomes a minefield of dangers after he or she becomes a parent. I'm sure this "one viewer" had no problems with cartoons before junior showed up.

I mean really. Tom and Jerry getting the sanitation treatment in the Internet Age? I fear this "one viewer's" response to Google.

This is the best of all possible worlds, Candide...

Jidcat - Thanks for the tip. As a kid, Uncle Remus was my hero. I'm gonna go surf France.

Cartoon sanitizing is nothing new. How long has it been since you've seen Sambo, or Injun Joe, or any other great un-PC character, from the early days of cartoons when ethnic and racial sterotypes were the norm?

Any kids who are watching cartoonws these days have likely seen Itchy and Scratchy who do far worse.

Who are the bozos who answered the poll question w/ an "I don't know"? It's yes or no. Don't bother taking a poll if you are too stupid/lazy to think about the question and form an opinion.

a lot more kids are affected by obesity than smoking, so let's liposuck all the fattoons! i mean, porky pig's cholestrol HAS to be through the roof.

What the heck is wrong with today's parents?, some of these people actually grew up watching Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Archie, etc., I am part of that generation and don't have any problems with that either.

What it the point of being a PC-infected person if you don't want to see the fact that today's kids are way ahead of eveybody else by watching internet porn or insanely violent video games while their self-righteous parents are downstairs. So what is worse?, a cartoon where Tom smokes to impress a she cat or a video game where you can mindless shot an ordinary citizen.

Please, don't fall for these folks who are pretty much the same people we saw back on the wild 70's and early 80's snorting coke, smoking pot and doing whatever the heck they wanted to pretend give us morality lessons. Keep the perspective.

Extreme case of 'political-correctianisis' is turning this diverse society into a 'stepford' one. What does a cartoon about a cat and mouse have to do with a child smoking. If a child wants to imitate a cat/mouse then i have great sympathy for the parents.
Leave Tom&Jerry the way it is.. they are historical treasures.

In 1994 Connie Willis (a great writer) wrote a book called "Remake" where the protagonist's job was to go through films and delete whatever the "evil" of the day was, in this case cigarettes and alcohol. It is scary that this is no longer fiction.

I'm a convinced and sometimes belligerent non-smoker, but this is taking things to the level of censorship. What's next? Digitally removing the cigarettes from Bogey's old movies? A family-friendly version of Casablanca? A Sherlock Holmes without pipe? Edward G. Robinson without cigar?
Sure, smoking is unhealthy for the smoker and his environment, but so are gun fights, fist fights and high speed car pursuits. Next, they'll want all such scenes deleted from Hollywood movies before they appear on television!

Let me get this straight, there are parents that want to take smoking out of the Tom and Jerry cartoons? Let's start with parent your own children, if you don't want them to watch something, block that channel. If you're watching these cartoons you MUST have cable, you can block rating levels AND channels. Next, get a LIFE AWAY from T.V., go outside and smell the flowers, don't complain about everything, you do have choices you can make, one good choice would be to leave this country. Let's take this a step further, let's remove ALL the smoking on T.V., that would include all the clips on the news shows that are being shown from the war zones of the US troops, fighting so that you can make such statement and still live.

I am all for tobacco prevention and smoke-free policies. But I agree that censorship of our past culture is not the way to go. If parents are concerned, use the cartoon as a discussion-starter. "See how prevalent smoking used to be - they even put it in cartoons! We're much smarter now..."

There is no way that a child is going to be influenced by a cartoon smoking cat.

Even if your child did start to smoke, you would be long in your grave and his/her children would have children of their own, before smoking COULD, POSSIBLY, cause your "child" to die "prematurely".
Of course the anti-smokers getting a whiff of your childs cigarette would be, instantly, dropping like flies. Would this make your child a mass murderer or a freedom fighter? Either way, Tom the cat wouldn't have anything to do with it.

IT,S REALLY ENTERTAINING LOT

Hey, I am working on a assignmnent and I was wondering if you could help. My topic is

CELEBRITIES AND THEIR ADVERTISED LIFESTYLES HAVE A NEGATIVE EFFECT ON YOUNG VIEWERS

I am looking for a catchy introduction and my job is to convience people that they ARE a bad influence.

Thanks.

Saturday morning cartoons used to be in full animation thanks to working on film. When it was discovered that the computer could be used to create cartoons, a sad turn of events went spiralling down along with the cost of animation. Today, less-than-full animation rules the kiddies airwaves. It's simply cheaper to show lips moving and the characters not moving. Worse yet, sometimes the "animation" is merely a still image that manages to talk.

The artistry is gone. The stories are very, very dumb. Most of them are sci-fi, which means the stories are pulled out of the anal cavities of the animators.

So it's not how good can we make it for the money. It's how cheap and fast can we do it.